On Mon, 19 Sep 2005, Tom Walker wrote:
> Have a look at the state by state (& east/west) results. Deutsche Welle has a
> interactive graph that shows percentages in each of the federal states.
> Excluding the huge 2-1 margin of the CSU in Bavaria, the CDU trailed the SPD
> by around six percentage points and led in all but three states all in the
> south. Obviously there's a tremdenous regional discrepency underlying the
> surface "tie".
A variant of that has actually been a main talking point of the SPD ever since they made their surprising claim on election night that they should supply the Chancellor for the grand coalition. They started saying that the "union" is actually two parties, and if you judge the CDU by itself, the SPD is actually the biggest party. But what they were really getting at is what you just pointed out -- that the CDU lost. And they are kind of hoping that CSU leader Stoiber, who has always wanted to be the leader instead of Merkel, will tacitly support this by night fighting it strenously.
Michael